


A One Way Road

by perlaret



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alderaan, Allusions to Miscarriage, F/M, New Canon Compliant, allusions to character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-04 09:56:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12768540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perlaret/pseuds/perlaret
Summary: Three times Bail Organa came home.





	A One Way Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vivien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vivien/gifts).



The doctor ushers Bail Organa in at long last. “You can see her now,” she says, kind yet solemn.

The room is well lit and comfortable, but Breha is too pale against the richly colored fabrics of the sheets. It strikes a discordant chord in Bail as he approaches. The soft, pulsing glow of his wife’s pulmonodes is a familiar and constant fact of their lives, but the sight of her unwell is not.

She opens her eyes and smiles wanly at him when he sits beside her on the mattress.

“You’re supposed to be on Coruscant,” Breha says, but the gratitude in her tone belies the words. Bail smooths his thumb along her temple, pushing back the small hairs that have strayed from her braid.

“I came as soon as I heard,” he says. “Everything else can wait.”

This isn’t entirely true. The Republic falters with each passing day, the demands of war ever increasing. There are many lines which Bail most uphold, but this is perhaps the most sacred.

Breha sighs. “Then you’ll have heard the rest,” she surmises, sounding more weary now than before. “We cannot risk this again.”

“No,” Bail agrees, because they never should have risked Breha’s health this way to start with, but hope and timing had made them less cautious, when already they’d been considering their options. “Back to our first plan, then?”

She lifts her hand to cover his, pressing her cheek into the warmth of Bail’s hand. “Soon,” she says.

-

The air is brisk. It almost always is, in the palace courtyards, high above Aldera, but Breha hardly feels it. Sweat warms her back, her muscles pleasantly sore from an afternoon’s activity.

“Control your elbows, Iyrina,” she calls. The young woman does as instructed as she goes into a spin, the blunt practice knives in her hands flashing in the sunlight. Her combatant, Renae, dodges and parries, her long braid whipping with movement. They move swiftly, traversing the circle of Breha’s proteges, who observe with sharp eyes.

Renae is the better knife fighter, Jurannean knife fighting being a hallmark of her home region, but Iyrina is inventive and nimble. It’s a good demonstration of both their skills and their learning, but experience wins in the end, Renae ducking beneath Iyrina’s reach and pressing the blunt side of the blade against her stomach.

Breha calls it, clapping her hands once. The two draw apart and make the sign of goodwill, three fingers pressed to their chins, before directing their attentions to their queen.

“Good,” Breha says. “Iyrina, good footwork, but you need to mind your reach. Continue practicing. And Renae, don’t get cocky. At the end, you left yourself exposed. Don’t underestimate the possibility someone will take that.” She catches the gazes of her other students as she turns – Ennea, Verna, Una – until Breha’s eyes catch on a figure lingering beyond the young Alderaanian women in her charge. She smiles, but continues without pause. “I hope you all noticed the implementation of the side steps we discussed, and the Leusa parry. Practice these before our next session. Your readings will be delivered to you as usual.”

It takes only a few more minutes to wrap up the lesson and send the girls on their way, and when Breha finally looks up, Bail is still there, in the flesh, free of the staticky blue cast of a holo image.

“I wasn’t expecting you until tonight,” Breha says, crossing to him. Bail takes her hand when they meet, lifts it and presses a warm kiss to the backs of her fingers. He’d done the very same they day they’d met, and on the eve of their wedding, and many a time since.

“I thought I could surprise you,” Bail says. They comm regularly, but a hologram is no stand-in for her husband before her, face to face. Breha drinks in the sight of him and thinks that the strain that echoes across the holonet when they speak is only growing.

She lowers her voice. “Is it a good surprise?” To outside ears, it may sound coy, but in it lies a deeper question. Beyond the reaches of Alderaanian space the galaxy grows darker and darker. As Viceroy, Bail sees the worst of it first, but ultimately it must fall to her shoulders as well. Training up the next generation of cultural leaders was never meant to be enough. Breha looks ever to the horizon, preparing. He squeezes her hand.

“It’s just a surprise,” he says calmly. They’ve been married long enough that Breha can recognize the current of danger that runs beneath the placid surface he presents. “There are things we must discuss, but nothing so urgent that I can’t see my daughter first.”

“Leia will be up from her nap soon, and glad to see you,” Breha says as they pass through the doorway. Her arm slips into his as they walk the halls, meandering through the evidence of many eras. Alderaan’s history was long and proud, apparent in every room. The Empire is young, but it grows like a weed and just as hostile. Breha thinks of the girls she’s taken under her wing, of her adopted daughter, and hopes that they will continue Alderaan’s traditions for decades to come, as Alderaanians have for generations past.

They will not falter.

-

Bad news marches in like a martial beat, regular and ominous. The Rebel Alliance has its wins, but the odds are stacked against them. The Battle at Scarif is, perhaps, the moment of greatest hope they’ve had yet, so of course, what follows is perfectly designed to strip Bail of all of his own.

Telling Breha that Leia is missing is far worse.

When at last the tears slow and the hour grows late, they sit in bed with their heavy hearts between.

“Do you remember when we were married?” Breha asks eventually. Her voice is raw and tired and restless. “The world was different then.”

Bail remembers the day, the joy and excitement that filled every room, the way blue flowers had burst from every corner, the way the gold gilding of Breha’s dress had caught the sunlight and the glow of the pulmonodes that brightened her chest. He’d loved her then with a fierceness that had not tempered with the years, that had only grown with the love they shared for their family and for their planet.

“It will be different again,” he says, searching deep for a strength he doesn’t feel. “You’ll see.”

She rolls closer to him, her head finding his chest. Bail wraps his arms around her shoulders, resting his cheek against her hair. He’s seen war before, has lost more friends than he cares to count, and this war is only beginning but nothing has ever stung so bitterly as this.

“Tell me,” Breha says.

Bail clears his throat. “She’ll be back,” he says. “She’ll be back, and she will fight with us, and the Empire will end. She will be queen of Alderaan one day, and our grandchildren will grow up in this palace.” He weaves them a story with unlikely threads, because it’s the only way he knows to fight this particular battle.

They lay awake in the long hours of the night, the darkness weighing over them like a ghost.

The next day, with a rumble, the world fills with blinding, burning light.


End file.
